


I'm Tired. Aren't You Tired?

by SunsetOfDoom



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, a hopeful prediction for the new episode, not the ending maul's going to get but the ending he deserves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-17 19:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9339398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunsetOfDoom/pseuds/SunsetOfDoom
Summary: The last confrontation of sworn enemies, both worn and old and all run out of reasons to fight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THANKS LEON FOR GETTING ME INTO THIS PAIRING.

Obi-wan stared down the blade of the lightsaber at his oldest enemy. He looked it. Maul’s patterned skin was worn and weathered, the deep, terrifying blacks and reds muted by age and washed-out by the bright blue light.

He certainly didn’t look the terror he had been on Naboo.

But then, Obi-wan was not the Padawan he had been, on Naboo. Before the war. Before the Sith. Before the thousand little deaths that war and grief had snuffed out in his soul.

Ben felt very much a dead man walking, some days.

Maul snarled, his eyes closed. He didn’t reach for his disarmed saber, lying an arm’s length away; his fingers twitched against the sand, but his hand did not move.

They both seemed frozen, waiting for a movement from the other. The duel had been long and arduous, over sand dunes and hidden cliffs, ranging all around the Lars’ small farm. Probably Maul had noticed Obi-wan was trying to keep him away from something, but he had never pressed; like he had the first time they met on this Force-forsaken planet, Maul seemed once again to be fighting more for the challenge and the aesthetics than the goal. He’d flipped and twirled with more grace than Obi-wan was capable of in his twenties, metal legs and old joints be damned. But still, Obi-wan remained the better duelist. Maul’s years in exile had dulled his once beautiful skills. That first fight on Naboo, Obi-wan had won mostly through Maul's pride and his own luck. But after over a decade of war and practice while Maul rotted and lost his mind- Maul had never regained his lost perfection.

Obi-wan tried not to blink, watching the faintest rays of sunlight rise over the dunes and hit Maul’s face, the red light of Tatooine’s second sun bringing out the color of his markings.

“Aren’t you going to kill me?” Maul said. Nothing of his body moved but his mouth; Obi-wan had scarcely even seen him breathe.

Obi-wan thought of Qui-gon, bent almost double as a red blade slammed through his body. He thought of Satine, gasping in his arms. He thought of a burning body and forbidden saber techniques that severed more than one limb at once, techniques he'd once thought he could have no cause to use on a living being.

He thought of a teenage boy in the farm at his back, with his father’s laugh and his mother’s kindness.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “If you force me to, I will.”

Maul’s lips twisted, then lifted, showing off his sharp teeth. Once, Obi-wan would’ve thought of predators, of threats; now he remembered Ahsoka, the way she bared her incisors at jokes or in affection.

“I thought,” he said, and paused. This time Obi-wan did see him breathe, a slow slide of his stomach under his shirt. “I thought you would want to kill me.”

Obi-wan heard the despair in his voice. He remembered war fatigue, tired soldiers, the look in his men’s eyes when they were ready for their next battlefield to be their last. He didn’t want to see that in Maul’s eyes. So he didn’t look.

“I don’t.”

“Why?” The question was snarled. The red-and-black hand darted, and the point of the blue saber- he realized with a sick drop in his stomach that it was Anakin’s, that he’d picked the wrong one up in his panic- the bright blue point stopped a bare millimeter from Maul’s throat. He froze. They both froze.

Several answers came to mind, self-righteous quotations of Jedi philosophy. Offers of pity, disguised as sympathy. He eyed Maul’s tightly-strung muscles, his hand inches from his saber hilt. Obi-wan discarded them; decided that, for once, with his oldest enemy, he may as well be honest. Completely honest. He hadn’t been that with anyone, not for a very long time.

“Because I’m tired. I’m tired of killing. Tired of fighting.” His breath broke from its well-trained combat rhythm, stuttered in his chest as his hand tightened on his Padawan’s saber hilt and his palm felt fire. “I’m _exhausted_ , Maul. Aren’t you?”

On his back, frozen in a half-scramble for his weapon, somehow Maul’s shoulders relaxed. His eyes closed tight, his head tipped back. He looked old, and beaten, and like he had lost everything he had ever known, everything he’d ever wanted. It was like Obi-wan was looking into a mirror.

“Yes.” Maul’s soft, low voice had always surprised Obi-wan a bit, after Naboo. He’d never expected the man to sound refined, after thinking of him as nothing but a psychotic beast for years. “I am very tired, Kenobi.”

Obi-wan sighed. “Then why-” _why come here_ , he wondered. _Why bother with me again, after so long?_

In answer, Maul’s head tipped back further. Baring his throat to the blade.

His own cry of _Anakin, no!_ resounded through his head. Through the saber hilt he could feel the twisted energy of Anakin’s Fall, his desperate actions, his last resorts. The Dark Side, made up all of despair and dead-end decisions. Obi-wan staggered back, and depowered the saber.

In the almost-light of the dawn, Maul’s eyes sprang open, the reflective gold shining.

“No,” Obi-wan said. He tried not to let his voice shake. “I won’t.”

Maul’s hand curled around his own saber. “I could make you.”

“You could.” Obi-wan agreed. Feeling ill, he put his finger back on the ignition button. “But don’t.”

“Why?” Maul demanded.

“ _Please_ don’t.”

“ _Why_ , Kenobi?”

“I want you to live!” The traitorous sentiment burst from his lips, half-formed, unintentioned, and perfectly true.

Maul stopped dead.

“We are both too old,” he continued, shocked at his own outburst, at the incomplete thoughts escaping his lips without a care, “and too tired. We are the _last_ , Maul. Go. Live. Our time has passed.”

They locked eyes, blue to gold, starlight and sunlight warring in the coming dawn. Maul rose, took his weapon, and was the first to turn his back.

Obi-wan watched him go, tracking his direction, trying to guess his destination. As the suns crept over the horizon he began to feel an achingly familiar, and horribly smug, presence.

“Are you disappointed in me?” He asked, half-rational. Revenge was not the Jedi way, of course, but still…

 _I am not disappointed. I am so proud, and so sad, and so sorry_ , came a voice that was half wind, half Qui-gon. _I have heard and seen so many things of the man who killed me. I do not hate him. Neither should you._

“Still.” Obi-wan said. “It doesn’t feel right, somehow. Watching him walk away.”

-

Obi-wan forced himself to stay awake the whole day through. Sleeping through the night- which the war had not made easy- had gotten infinitely harder for him since the Jedi purge, and age had not been helpful either. An all-night fight was perfect as a precursor to dreamless sleep, if he could only keep from napping. And he did- though, meditating was something of a grey area. He kept watch over the Lars farm, and still, no sign of Maul.

That night he slept, dark and dreamless and blessedly resting.

In the morning though, he awoke, made his breakfast, meditated. Drank the pitiful excuse for tea he could find on this barren rock.

And the second he stepped outside his door, was assaulted with three fresh corpses. He shouted, pushing his attackers away with the Force- and catching them there.

Hanging with twine from the overhang of his roof were three large, perfectly muscled, desert lizards. Each the size of his leg, at least. Necks cleanly broken. The meat of even one of these would keep him alive for a month; three was untold riches. He’d never had enough skill at hunting to find one. He’d always just bought them, for exorbitant prices.

From the cliff above his hut, a shadow moved, just barely.

 _Who is the best friend, I wonder, to the man who has lost everything?_ wondered Qui-gon’s voice in his ear. _Perhaps another who has suffered the same?_

“You are _insufferable_ ,” he told the empty air. Then he took his gifts, hefted them over his shoulders, and took them in to clean and dry.

And perhaps, to tidy a little. In case he was to have a guest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maul lurks, and Obi-wan tries to convince him to just- come visit his house like a normal person.
> 
> Not that he's a normal person either, let's be honest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight warning for Obi-wan being an unreliable narrator- we all know he's generally a good guy, but especially where Luke is concerned, he has a very biased POV.

It took months.

Obi-wan tried everything he could think of. He made stew from the lizard meat- he had to, or at least one of them would have gone bad- and left half a pot’s worth sealed outside. It was gone within hours, and somehow, even with his careful watch, Obi-wan didn’t see who took it. He kept careful watch of the tops of the cliffs, watching for that one, moving shadow- but it was always glimpses. He kept his lights on at night, trying to let a certain Nightbrother know he would be open to visitors.

Once or twice, he’d seen red-and-black skin, just on the edges of where the yellow glow of his lamps met the blue moonlight on the sand. Always just on the cusp, and always watching, waiting almost.

The gifts kept coming. When the three lizards were gone, it was other animals, even foraged tubers, the scarce plant life that grew underground near oases. Obi-wan found his scarce reserve of money- earned mostly through “magic” tricks and fortune-telling and Beru’s quiet gifts of coins- growing, instead of almost bare. He made real food out of the raw gifts, soups and curries- always struggling with his meager cooking skills, and the fact that Nightbrothers were obligate carnivores. He’d thought to himself more than once (after having to freeze two batches of foods because he’d realized at the last moment that they contained something that would make Maul sick) _what would I make for Ahsoka?_ He'd used to keep a jar or two of sweetbreads in his rooms for her- he found the organ meats slightly disgusting, even to look at, but they delighted his grand-Padawan and made her hyperactive into the bargain. (He'd always thought of it as a petty vengeance, sending Ahsoka back to her Master on a sugar high. Even jittery and hyperactive, she was nowhere near as much trouble as _he_ had been.)

What he left outside to be taken always disappeared quietly. He could almost think it wasn’t even Maul that took them. He tried not to think of them in terms of debts, or payments. They were gifts. That was all. There was no _paying_ for what they had done to each other, not anymore.

He kept watch on Luke, too. He felt odd, some days, watching a teenaged boy through binoculars, but really- the Larses wouldn’t let him near the boy, what _else_ was he to do?

Owen had told him angrily, Beru with quiet strength, that they did not see the need for their charge to be turned over to him in the way of the Jedi, as Obi-wan had assumed they would. It was driving him slightly mad, that he could not teach Luke what he needed to know. He could feel the boy’s sun-bright Force sensitivity growing with every moment he remained untrained and it was burrowing under his skin, feeling wrong and strange. This was why Jedi were taken as infants, to avoid this strangeness in Luke’s aura. It _had_ to be dangerous.

But then, in darker moments, he understood their decision. He’d already ruined the boy’s father. Who was to say the same wouldn’t become of the child?

So in the end, he did not argue. He watched. He pressed in the Force, trying to nudge Luke’s creeping signature into place like a gardener guiding a vine.

And now, there was a shadow atop the cliffs, watching with him.  
He kept half an eye on Maul, as he concentrated on his tricky task- focusing on what Luke was doing, this being repairing machinery (and oh, Anakin had always done that, had looked just the same, half-proud and lost in thought as he worked with his hands-) and feeling him out in the Force. Guiding him along the Light so that his concentration became a sort of meditation.

And every time he looked up, leaving Luke to continue his unknowing exercise alone for longer every time, Maul had gotten just a bit closer.

Eventually he was close enough that Obi-wan could see what he was wearing; a thick brown cloak, of the sort that sensible desert travellers and secret Jedi sympathisers wore, and black clothing. He carried a quarterstaff, but Obi-wan could see the half-concealed lightsaber on his hip.

Still, he was a good ways away. Staying carefully out of sight of the farm. Luke wouldn’t be able to see him, even if he wasn’t occupied. (And speaking of: Obi-wan gave him another nudge as the boy’s mind started to wander. _Stay on-task_ , he thought affectionately. _Your father always had trouble enough with that_.) He glanced up every minute or two, watching as the nightmare of his youth got closer and closer, and felt more curiosity than fear.

Luke, on his back underneath the vaporator, swore loudly- Obi-wan winced, having seen him get cuffed by Beru for his language before- and shook his head of the haze Obi-wan had been gently steering him towards for an hour or more.

He put the binoculars down and rested his head against the boulder at his side. Of course. Now he had to start over. Allowing himself to take a moment to curse the Universe, he stood with his forehead pressed to the warm rock for a while.

When he looked up, Maul was at his side.

A few feet away, surely. But there. Exactly as Obi-wan remembered him- his own height, frame leanly muscled in a way that spoke of hard living, with his prosthetics covered entirely. The brown cloak, a twin of Obi-wan’s own, draped atop his horns neatly.

Maul was staring at Luke. Or, at least, in Luke’s direction; Obi-wan had to use the binoculars to see him with any clarity from this distance, and as far as he knew Maul’s vision wasn’t any better. All he could see, with the binoculars still resting around his neck, was a blond blob half-underneath a vaporator, blending in with the sand.

He was looking with an almost predatory fascination, which gave Obi-wan an unpleasant chill. He wouldn’t put much of anything past Maul, morally speaking, but he did seem to usually have a reason for the murder of sentients, one that wasn’t just the thrill of a hunt. That, he seemed content with getting from the desert’s myriad creatures. But the way he stared at the boy...

“He’s Skywalker’s.” Maul stated.

Obi-wan’s stomach rolled at the name. “He is,” he said in an even tone, “and you’ll not harm him.”

Maul’s face did not move. “I will not.” His eyes narrowed, just barely, assessing the situation. “You’re raising that boy to kill the Emperor. To be the doom of the Sith.”

“I am permitted by his guardians to do very little,” Obi-wan admitted, “but yes, that is my hope.”

Maul nodded, once. Staccato and military. “I will take turns at the watch, then.”

Obi-wan raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Maul continued to stand, stalwart, his arms crossed and his boots dug into the sand.

They stood together a while. Obi-wan took up his binoculars again, but didn’t much need to monitor Luke in the Force at all; the boy was a natural at stillness sometimes, for all his frantic movement at others. It was just a matter of training him to access that focus when he wanted to, when he _needed_ to. And he couldn’t much do that from all the way out here. The Larses hadn’t even allowed him to come to dinner in over ten years, since Luke had learned to talk. Owen held a bloody long grudge. That was how he’d planned on making Luke his apprentice; as a family friend, a funny uncle who wanted to teach him new things. Surely a boy his age would accept that.

Obi-wan chewed over his bitter situation, his binoculars abandoned, leaning against “his” boulder. (It had a groove worn in it from his shoulder leaning against it as he watched over Luke. It was _his_ boulder, regardless of Qui-gon’s ideals about geological formations belonging to everyone and no-one.) Stuck on a barren rock with a Master he couldn’t see, an apprentice he couldn’t train, and a friend who wouldn’t come to visit. Woe was him. He sighed.

“Maul?” He asked. It was almost strange, to hear the name he had often spoken in fear or anger spoken in soft tones.

The man in question turned his head, just barely, enough to get across that he was listening. Obi-wan could have rolled his eyes at the performed stoicism.

“How long has it been,” he inquired, attempting to sound friendly and bare of ulterior motives, “since you slept in a proper bed?”

Maul’s head tilted. “All my life,” he replied, after much consideration. Obi-wan’s eyebrows raised.

“Never?”

“Not once.”

Obi-wan furrowed his brows. He’d looked into Maul’s village, on Dathomir- while he’d not gone about peering through windows, one noticed things. The houses had been furnished normally, if sparsely. It was a barren sort of place, but there had been a relatively normal amount of primitive comforts. “How did that come to pass?”

Maul’s eyes moved to look at him, slowly. His head did not turn, but Obi-wan received the driest and least impressed look he had ever seen on a humanoid face. “My past is not your business.”

“I’ve looked into it.” Obi-wan protested.

“You have looked incorrectly.”

“I visited your village.”

“You did not.” Maul said. Just as Obi-wan opened his mouth to protest, he cut in again. “You visited the Holy City of the Nightbrothers, on Dathomir, where the Trials are held. Most Nightbrother villages are small settlements in the mountains.”

“Ah.” Obi-wan nodded, hoping his beard covered his embarrassed flush. He’d often gotten himself into trouble as a Padawan, gaining himself a reputation as a know-it-all with surface knowledge only. But there were so many things to learn about, and one could not study them all deeply... “So, no beds up in the mountains, then?”

Maul’s lip lifted. “Kenobi...” It came out as a growl, an Obi-wan averted his gaze as his fingers twitched for his saber. He’d heard _that_ tone before.

He sighed. Mustered everything he could to make himself sound sincere. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to pry. But I haven’t the opportunity for much conversation, out here.”

He saw Maul give a tiny nod.

Instead of speaking again, he returned to his binoculars; Luke was struggling with the casing on the vaporator as the suns went down, the horrible old speeder already running, leaking fuel. The boy didn’t notice he did it, but Obi-wan saw the metal clasps slide home with no human help as Luke turned for the speeder- with all his chores done and a full fuel tank, he could speed through the canyons to his heart’s content until both suns were fully down. It was Luke’s favorite part of the day, as it had been Anakin’s, when he used to sneak out of the Temple to underground races he thought Obi-wan didn’t know about.

“I was not raised by the Nightbrothers.” Maul said, as Obi-wan was lost in watching his charge. He dropped the binoculars, letting them swing down to hit him in the chest.

“Oh.” Obi-wan said, or rather huffed, as the metal whacked against his ribs. “Who...” Theories flashed through his head, of slave traders, strange Nightsister rituals, or even an adopted family.

Maul swallowed, still standing ramrod-straight, the light of the sunset highlighting his markings as they arced across his face. “Sidious.”

Obi-wan pressed a hand to the sore spot on his chest that would soon become a bruise. He thought of Palpatine, who had wanted to spend time with Anakin so often and so innocently, who had driven them all into war with careful touches and soft words. WIth a shudder, he remembered the suffocating Darkness that had encroached as he left Mustafar, something he had known down to his bones could only belong to an old and terrifying Sith Master. And the sheer glee, in the holographic recording, as he surged lightning into the body of one of Obi-wan’s oldest friends.

He considered that Palpatine had raised Maul in the Sith from what sounded like infancy. 

Then, with a sick drop, he realized he himself had ]handed his _own_ child, at no more than ten years old, to be fostered and mentored by a _bloody Sith Master_. After all these years, it still took him by surprise that of all people who could have been a traitor in their midst...

He realized that his hands were shaking as Palpatine’s _Padawan Skywalker will do excellently as my page in the Senate, Master Kenobi_ rang through his head, and shook his head to clear off encroaching hysteria.

When he looked up again, Maul had turned entirely towards him. His hands were still held rigidly behind his back, but his golden gaze was calm and curious.

“Come on,” Obi-wan choked out. “I’m going home.”

Maul nodded, and moved as if to go- a swift turn in his boots.

“No, I-I didn’t-” Obi-wan stammered. “I mean- come with me.”

Maul stopped. Slowly, he turned back around.

“For- what?” He asked.

“I don’t-” Obi-wan caught the frantic _I don’t care!_ that had been on its way out of his throat, and swallowed it down. Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he tried to think of something clever, something charming, something _convincing_ to say. Shaking his head, he beat back the image of Anakin- young and afraid of getting anything wrong, being lead by the hand by a man who would use him and steal his bloody soul- from the forefront of his mind. 

He gave up trying to find anything tactful to say.

“For company. For tea.” Obi-wan said. “By the Force, I need tea. Right now.” He tucked his still-shaking hands into the sleeves of his robes and turned away from the farm, from the speeder making a mad dash for the horizon, and towards home.

As he walked, he felt Maul follow, the whole way back.

**Author's Note:**

> If I put my back into it I'll probably write more stories in this 'verse. I have a lot of their conversations written out in my head, it's just an issue of writing them in a document.
> 
> And yeah, okay, the other bits will be Obimaul. I am weak and I love grumpy old men taking care of each other.
> 
> Bits and unfinshed pieces will probably be posted at [my tumblr](sunsetofdoom.tumblr.com).


End file.
